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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

I have been busy with other stuff, so the Mad Men Dead Pool will be holding a moderated draft. I will take lists of twenty characters (IMDB is your friend) from each contestant of who they think are likely candidates to die, and then use them to draft for each player.

We have five players, and I have used cards to choose the draft order:

Wendy goes first since she "drew" the 9 of clubs;

Will goes second since he "drew" the 7 of spades;

Noah goes third since he "drew" the 5 of diamonds;

Rob goes fourth since he "drew" the 2 of spades and then the seven of hearts and then the Queen of diamonds to break the ties with

Chip who goes fifth since he "drew" the 2 of diamonds, then the seven of clubs before the eight of spades.

With a snakelike draft, I will take the top choice from Wendy's list and put that player in Wendy's pool. I will then take the top choice from Will's list (excluding Wendy's choice) and put that player in Will's pool. I will then take Noah's top choice (excluding the Mad Men cast members already picked) and so on.

The order will be Wendy, Will, Noah, Rob, Chip; Chip, Rob, Noah, Will, Wendy; and then repeated. So, each player will have four players in their dead pool. The one with the most dead Mad Men characters wins. Deaths must be confirmed. If off screen, then we will need on screen discussion to be definitive. I will, of course, make all decisions and am the final arbiter. It is my game ;)

I forget what folks suggested as tie breakers which were excellent, so each player will submit not just a list of ten names with the characters they think will die (most likely at the top, less likely at the bottom), but also their favorite tie breaker. I will then quickly decide which tie breaker is the one I will use and then get their answers for the tie breaker.

Ok? Clear? Maybe not. Well, let's see how it goes. The deadline for the draft lists is Saturday at 5pm EDT via email. If the contestants cannot figure out my email, they deserve to lose. That way, I can "run" the draft Sunday morning and have it posted before the first episode of this last set of seven episodes.

A Canadian member of parliament, James Lunney, is leaving the Conservative Party because he really wants his freedom of religion to be unrestricted. What does that mean? Apparently, he wants to talk about evolution or something.

It seems to be the case that he fears that his Christianity is being repressed by a party that represents the right part of the Canadian political spectrum. Boo freaking hoo!

I tweeted thusly:

I guess the MP is upset that there is not enough tyranny of the majority? Maybe he should move to Indiana #LunneyWTF
— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) March 31, 2015

If the poor MP thinks he will get flak for criticizing that which science has proven quite well--evolution is a fact and there are theories that vary in how well they explain that fact--then he is right. Given that we live in a time where the forces of anti-science are creating public bads--measles outbreaks--we need to be clear that the facts are the facts, and you can have your opinions about them. But if you are a politician, be prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged reason.

Check out my latest TV appearance, this time with Dave Perry on CPAC, taped before and broadcast after the Canadian Parliament voted to "support" the mission. The fun part is when Martin Stringer cites ye olde Spew!

What a strange piece?! Steve Coast (never heard of him before) writes an interesting piece that argues the world is getting weirder. Why? Because we have figured out how to manage many of the normal problems so that the weird stuff is the danger now. He cites air travel--that air frames are far better, so now the problem is the occasional crazy pilot who can lock out the other pilot. Of course, one of the sources of prior air travel was apparently urine corrosion for airplane bathrooms, so let's not call the old form of crashes entirely un-weird.

And I can see how this applies elsewhere--that war is far less frequent than it once was, but now we have terrorists who have outsized influence. And terrorists are mostly ... weird.

The article then turns to solutions: more freedom. If we have less rules, we can do stuff faster. Because, you know, speed is really the important thing we value. As an incredibly impatient person, I might sympathize with that, but not really since I like the safety part. That rules do get in the way of transactions, as Coast argues, but that just means we need to figure out the best balance. Instead, the piece SPEEDILY takes a jump in a libertarian direction. The move is:

If we can measure economic value as a function of transactional volume
(the velocity of money for example), which appears reasonable, then
fewer rules will mean more volume, which means better economics for
everyone. So it used to be very hard to create an airline, now it’s
easy, we have more choice and more flights and so on.

I may not an economist, but this seems to be one way to define or measure economic value. Oh, and more volume means better economics for everyone? No, not really, as we have found that equity/fairness/etc tend not to be produced in rule-free or rule-scarce places. Instead, early movers/those with early advantages can use their market (and otherwise) power to dominate. I think we used to call that colonialism/imperialism which produced stuff like slavery.

Oops, citing slavery might be a Godwin's law-like move, but I am sure enterpreneurs like Coast would prefer to have a situation where there are few laws limiting how labor is used--that would make things speedy, right?

Monday, March 30, 2015

I was on the radio this morning talking about the Canadian parties and where they stand on Syria/Iraq and the expansion of the mission. I indicated that the Liberals are in a difficult spot, stuck between a Conservative party that is pushing for force to be used and a New Democrat Party focused on non-violent means. The Liberals want voters next fall from the right and the left, and any move here will antagonize one side or another. Sucks to be in middle.

But to be fair, this is a really hard policy problem: should Canada be dropping bombs on Daesh in Iraq and Syria? To what end? I have been ambivalent so I am using this post to figure out my stance. The focus here is on expanding to Syria, as it is the real question du jour, but many of the arguments apply to bombing Iraq as well.

Pro's

Striking Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS) in Syria will make it harder for them to expand their territory in both Syria and Iraq.

Causing Daesh to lose some territory is a major defeat for them as their rhetoric and strategy have focused on momentum and inevitability.

Helps US with "low density, high demand" assets. Not the CF-18s but the Auroras and refueling aircraft. Helping an ally in difficult times is a good thing.

But it is not going to get Canada anything in its relations with the US if there are offsetting domestic dynamics--Keystone pipeline, for example.

The risk that a plane might get shot down or fail, leading to the capture of a pilot by ... barbarians.

Syria has air defenses that have not been knocked out.

So far, Syria has implicitly cooperated with the US and its Arab allies. No reason to see this change. If it does, Canada can leave Syrian air space.

Being so very visible in this fight (only non-US Western country striking Syria) probably makes Canada a more likely target for terrorism by Islamist extremists.

To be clear, I don't believe that Canada's foreign policy should be held hostage due to fears of retaliation. It is a con, but not one that is large in my calculus.

Money spent on this effort means less money for the Canadian Forces to do something else.

What else? Training and maintenance. Harper is not sending the CF to do peacekeeping someplace else, so no false choices between this and DRC or whatever.

Complications:

Responsibility to Protect [R2P] is kind of moot here. Why? Because it would imply helping the Syrian people with their biggest threat--Assad! Um, yeah. Even Lloyd Axelworthy, father or patron saint of R2P, is not saying that R2P applies in Syria.

Talk of victory via bombing (by Canadian Minister of National Defence Kenney) is silly. We cannot bomb Daesh into defeat. That is the job of people on the ground.

International law? I am not an expert on such stuff, but I have never found compelled by the argument that one needs a UN Security Council resolution for doing something serious in the world. Why? Because it means that one's foreign policy is subject to vetoes by Russia and China.

Non-Complications

Exit strategy is missing? Yes, in the case of Syria, there is no clear strategy to win. Bombing

will not do it. In Iraq, one can hope that the Shia government finally figures out that lasting stability requires a credible arrangement with the Sunnis. If the Sunnis switch sides, then Daesh will have a very difficult time. In Syria? Not so much. But it is very easy for Canada to leave. Canada can say it has done what it can and put the 69 SOF back on a plane home. The logistics people are in Kuwait and can come and go at the government's whim. The planes can obviously fly home. This is not Kandahar.

Mission creep? Yes, expanding to Syria is some creep, but it is not a radical expansion of effort. So far, no more SOF, no more planes. So, this is a re-allocation of effort and not an increase in the personnel or expenses. The risk is somewhat larger but not radically so. This is not an enduring ground campaign.

Ug, no wonder I have been reluctant to take a definitive position on this. I do think containing Daesh is worth some effort, and this is what Canada is doing--making some effort. The risks and costs are real but not large. The Daesh vs. Assad problem is real, but even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice (all Canadian strategy should be based on Rush songs). So, count me in favor of Canada's continuing/new mission to engage in air strikes and provide key "enablers" (SOF in Iraq, Auroras and refueling over both Syria and Iraq)

Sunday, March 29, 2015

The Economist has a piece on American higher education. There is an earlye early mis-step of suggesting that higher ed has two customers--students and government--when much of American higher ed is private. Oops. Still, it does present some challenges about the current state of higher ed-more expensive, more debt, mixed outcomes, etc.

At least this piece, unlike others, does keep in mind that universities have multiple purposes,* and on a key dimension, things are not so bad in the US:

On the research side, America’s government has little to complain of.
Although several European countries have more Shanghai top 100
universities in relation to their population than the United States
does, America still dominates the summit of research: 19 of the world’s
top 20 universities in Leiden University’s ranking of most-cited
scientific papers in 2014 were American.

The article suggests three: research, human capital and equity. The first two? Sure. But I am not sure that equity is the goal of the US government or of its constituent units. Nor, to be fair, for Canada either. Indeed, the insistence on relatively low tuition in Canada is actually not a force for equity since it means that the poor subsidize the middle class and the rich. If the various governments of the US really cared about equity, they would not have cut support for higher ed over the past twenty or thirty years. The big force driving up tuition at public schools probably not faculty salaries but more likely to be filling the gap produced by the decline in state government support.

I am not saying that there is not a problem, but that the equity problem is very much one of government policy. Yes, universities and colleges need to figure out how not to have their tuition outpace inflation (especially for the next three years), but the equity story is as much or more about public policy as it is about management (completely contradicting my first point, right?).

Are students just buying degrees as the article insists? Yes and no. Yes, employers seek folks who have degrees in the fields they need. But with degrees come ... skills, knowledge, an improved ability to think and write and all that. And the best way to make sure one is paid well in the long term is ... to take a look at the difference in the income of those with those degrees and those without. Oh, and much of the dip in BA income over the past several years has more to do with macroeconomic dynamics (the recession, the faux austerity measures, problems with firms valuing bonuses to the top folks and not good pay for the average worker) than anything universities have been doing wrong lately.

The article places the blame for the current state of affairs on "shared governance."

Really? Profs have that much power? Yes, tenure restricts the ability for resources to be shifted around, yet we have seen a massive shift over the past twenty plus years in terms of the percentage of classes taught by tenure track professors vs that taught by adjuncts. The latter are cheap--the pay is low, the benefits are few and they can be hired/fired easily. So, the managers have actually plenty of flexibility despite the inflexible tenured profs. The US has little in the way of professor unions (unlike Canada) which means managers have even more flexibility.

Yes, professors and departments resist reallocations from one area to another, just as any entity/group does. All you have to do is read Machiavelli to get that:

``And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take
in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its
success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes.
For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are
well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm
supporters in those who might be better off under the
new.''

Profs have little input on the big infrastructure programs that can bankrupt schools (UQAM in Montreal, Sweet Briar College in the US come to mind). The growth in administrative costs are undeniable. How much of this is needed versus how much of this is not? Not so clear. But, sure, we need to do something.

But that something is not for-profit schools, which this piece considers to be threatened by over-regulation. The experience thus far of such places has been rather exploitative, so one "woots!" when one hears of U of Phoenix hemorrhaging enrollments. Ok, that one would be me.

The strange thing is that the article concludes that universities are less healthy because tuition is not growing as fast. Um, isn't that a good thing? I am confused. Indeed, I know there is a problem, especially since I am paying American tuition to a private school. I worry about the future of my profession, but the diagnoses and remedies posed here are really quite lousy. Ah, the all powerful profs dictating to administration! If only.

When I was at a conference in New Brunswick, Marc Milner, one of the hosts and a military historian, chatted briefly about his new book: Stopping the Panzers: the Untold Story of D-Day. It turns out that historians have slighted the Canadian contribution in June in France 1944. We should not be surprised by this since most of this history was written by Brits and Americans who focused on their own forces. This book fills a big gap, explaining that the Canadian army did exactly what they were supposed to do, even though it was very, very hard.

The traditional history has the Canadians stumbling around Caen, failing to take that city early. As it turns out, the planners of the invasion identified the key threat to the invasion--a German counter-attack through the most tank-friendly country. They built a largely Canadian unit to occupy that space, giving it more much anti-tank capability than any other unit that landed on June 6th. This unit was trained and equipped to stop the likely Panzer assault.

As it turned out, the planners knew what they were doing--they predicted quite well what the Germans were going to try to do--run the tanks up through the allied beachhead to the sea. But they failed due to the actions of the Canadians. So rather than being stuck in place, the actual story is really more of the Canadians doing exactly what they were supposed to do and do it quite well. And the cost was higher than it should be as they faced SS and Hitler Youth units that executed a larger number of POWs.

In this case, not losing was very much winning. The Canadians protected the beachhead so that the allies could land the units and materiel that would eventually be used to break out of Normandy. The book may overplay sometimes the Canadian contribution--when it focuses on the Canadian units in the fake army that was used by the allies to persuade the Germans that Normandy was a feint and that the real attack was coming at Pas de Calais. Yes, that disception was important, but I am not so sure that the Germans were convinced by the apparent presence of the Canadian units in that effort. It might have mattered but not that much.

I am not a military historian and for good reason. This research was far more thorough in the getting all the details lined up to tell a very interesting story about this overlooked part of the most studied military campaign. it was a good read that also taught me the importance of artillery in tank warfare.

It only took me thirteen years to go to a professional hockey game. Well, it is very hard getting tickets to Canadiens games, so when a colleague invited me to an Ottawa 67's game, I jumped on it. The OHL (I have no idea what that stands for) is minor league hockey, and does not get quite the same love as the NHL. So, there were plenty of empty seats at the playoff game between the Ottawa team and the Niagara team.

The crowd that was there saw an interesting game. No scoring and few shots on goal in the first half with the away team controlling much of the action. They scored the first goal in the second period, which was immediately met by a flurry of Ottawa goals, six of them! The final score was 8-2.

Watching a 67s game at home is an interesting experience. The arena is under the stands of the TD Stadium, so once side of the arena is truncated. The players at this level are young, so the cheerleaders (all three or four of them) are high school age, and had the embarassing task of helping to run the intermission games. The first one was a Price is Right game where two fans had to guess the price of various products--toothpaste, for instance. Oy.

The tickets are apparently not expensive, so there were lots of kids who
ate up the experience. The boys under or around ten seemed to really
enjoy dancing badly, hoping that they get on camera.

Is there fighting at this level? Um, yeah.

It was not hard to immediately adopt the home team--smaller, feistier, and laying out on defence early and often. I will still not watch a heap of hockey on TV, but this is probably not the last game I will attend. I do hope this meets the hockey requirement on the citizenship application.

Friday, March 27, 2015

We already knew that the University of Oregon is, um, mighty messed up, as it used students' records from campus counseling to defend itself from a lawsuit (one where the victim of sexual assault accused the university of protecting the perpetrators from untimely discipline). Now, it seems Oregon may be firing the people who worked at the counseling center who resisted this effort.

This is doubling down on the betrayal of trust. Students should not trust any campus employee at Oregon, as they will be subjected with dismissal if the staffer takes the students interests and rights seriously. I feel sorry for all those working at this institution, as it is now a place where the students have no assurances that their rights and well being matter. Indeed, when it comes to it, the students who are victims are victimized again to protect the University and its athletes.

Apparently, the school must believe that old line that there is no such thing as bad PR. Um, there is, and this is textbook. The effort to coverup and then punish is going to do far more damage to the university's reputation than a couple of rapists.

If only the University of Oregon were a public school where legislators and state officials might be able to do something about it.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The Nerdist broadcast has a thing called Qomments--questions and comments. Which pretty much captures what this post on the news du jour.

Does it matter that Canada has no legal cover for this? This is the first time I know of (and I am no Canadian military historian) where Canada is engaged in combat (by planes, if not by SOF-ish adventures) without either an international resolution (UN or NATO or both) or an invitation by the country to be protected.

Is the kind of bombing in Syria different than that which is going to happen now in Iraq? That is, not that there are no targets left in Iraq but if the fighting shifts into the cities, such as Mosul, there may be different risks--more risks of hitting civilians. Is the Syrian air campaign seen as cleaner? I have no idea.

The plan in Iraq is clear but hard--try to get the existing government to make deals with the Sunnis that bind them better than the last time. Not easy at all but an exit path. Bombing helps keep ISIS down, but lasting stability requires a deal of some kind. Syria? I have no idea. Bomb ISIS helps Assad, but not bombing ISIS in Syria helps ISIS in Iraq. Damn.

I hate talk of exit strategies because it means you are far more focused on the getting out rather than the doing. But there is some need for some idea of what the strategy is here besides whacking moles. Attrition is probably not going to work too well.

I do prefer renewing this thing a year at a time rather than every six months. Not just because the media time suck is then less frequent, but because none of the actors involved benefit from the spin cycle being that frequent.

What will happen to public opinion now that the mission is expanded to Syria? The recent poll does not ask this. Given that ISIS is mighty unpopular here, especially after the events of October in Quebec and Ottawa, the best guess is that the public is not going to mind so much as long as it does not mean much more risk. Which gets back to whether the air strikes in Syria are qualitatively different than those in Iraq?

I am not thrilled that there is not much of a learning curve when it comes to the language about ground forces: "Canada will not be participating in ground combat operations." I prefer the American language about enduring offensive operations. CANSOF are going to be doing combat, as they have already done so. They have fought when fired upon and put themselves into places where such stuff happens. They have participated in the air campaign by lasing ISIS targets, which means they are abetting combat from the ground. So, "ground combat ops" is a lousy description of what they are not doing. What they are not doing is engaging in an enduring offensive effort. If they want to foreswear raids (something that the American language clearly permits), then they can say that. Oy.

Just one key certainty: humility. Canada's contribution is meaningful but it is not going to swing outcomes by themselves.

Monday, March 23, 2015

It is time for that ritual post--responding to those who think that being a professor means we work 10 hours a week. One of my earliest posts compared a prof to an iceberg in that much of what we do is unseen (and that we destroy ships). An op-ed in a Canadian newspaper (which was so awful it does not deserve linking) made the claim that our teaching is only ten hours a week and that we should not do the research stuff that much. More significantly, the governor of Wisconsin, a state known for its excellent institutions of higher education, has been saying that profs need to teach more classes and do more work.

Before I start: a caveat--I teach a 2/1 load--two courses one semester and one course the other as I buy out one class a year with the funds that come with my endowed chair. So, I am a particularly poor situation to make any arguments since I am in the classrooms less than my colleagues. But I am self-aware, not humble, so I will argue anyway about these claims.

Let's consider this a challenge: if folks want us to teach more, what do they want us to do less? Because, yes, Virginia, Scott Walker, most profs work 40 or more hours a week as it is. So, if you want us to do more time in the classroom, we are going to do less of something else. Just tell us what you want us to do less of:

Teaching: Yep, we could spend more time in the classroom and less time teaching. How does that make sense?

One of the biggest time commitments is to the supervision of undergraduates and grad students. At liberal arts colleges, they spend far more time supervising each individual undergrad. At most universities, one can spend a fair amount of time supervising various kinds of undergrad theses. In my previous job, I did some of that, and it takes time. I did supervise a bunch of PhD students and still do some of that, and I now supervise MA students in greater volume.

Maybe we should have fewer graduate students, which would reduce how much time we spend on supervision. But that is a decision that should be made directly and not through the back door of higher teaching loads.

One could spend less time preparing lectures and seminar discussions. Yes, this actually does take time. The more classes you teach, the more prep work that is required. Sure, over the course of time, each class is mostly prepped. But in most disciplines, there is new stuff to learn to teach, so we need to read books, journals, newspapers, and other media through we learn stuff. Yes, we keep learning.... if we have the time.

One could reduce the time spent on teaching by having more multiple choice exams. There is room in the academic enterprise for these things, but they do not really test thinking as much as they test memorization (at least as far as I have been able to design such tests). To really educate the next generation to think better, we need to see it on paper--via papers and essay exams. Which means grading, which takes time. More classes mean less time for grading.

Research: This is usually the target of the teach more crowd. Why? Because research is useless?

One example of the relevance of social science research that is often targeted. There has been much scholarship on what kinds of political institutions make ethnic conflict more or less problematic. While there is much about the relative success story of South Africa, one key ingredient is that they brought in the experts--the academics--who studied such stuff and asked how they should design their constitution. Afghanistan? No, not at all.

If you take a look at the map around UCSD (the place I know best, but true elsewhere too), you will see that it is damn near surrounded by bio-tech and information technology companies. Tis no accident.

I am currently reading a book on a key moment in Canadian history: the Normandy campaign. Why is this relevant? Because it shapes how Canada sees its military and others see it, which might just shape the role it plays in future multilateral military operations.

The reality is that universities are the epitome of economic multipliers--money goes in, and it spurs the local economy... more so than prisons or military bases. And much of that is related to the spinoffs from research.

It is certainly true that not all basic research turns into tangible economic outcomes, and that private actors can do research, too. But much of what private actors do is subsidized by government one way or another. Plus the accidental discoveries of random academics often have huge value-added. And are often, of course, inconvenient for the powerful. Which is why the freedom to engage in whatever research one wants (within limits--no longer experimenting on students that much anymore) is so very key. That government labs and private labs are unlikely to produce that inconvenient stuff that is often so important in the long run.

Via grant-writing, we are expected to raise money for our research--much of that money does not end up in our pockets. Actually, none of it does. Much of it funds graduate programs, some of it funds travel/equipment, and much of it funds universities via "indirect costs" that never go through the professor's account.

Service: Much of that research stuff and that teaching stuff requires service to function.

We need people to spend time reviewing manuscripts (articles, books, chapters) so that we can be sure they are worthy of dissemination via reviewed outlets. I often say that I don't work that much on weekends, but then I realize I do most of my article reviewing on weekends. I am probably not the only one.

We spend much time evaluating ourselves so that we only hire, promote and tenure those who are deserving. This takes a tremendous amount of time--reading files, writing recommendations, listening to talks, etc.

Speaking of recommendations, not sure if it goes here or under teaching, but if you ask folks to teach more, they might have less time to write letters of recommendation for their students. Which might hurt their employability. Oops.

We are expected do outreach more and more--give talks to folks in the community, actually do community service, speak to the media not just to provide expertise but raise the visibility of our university, engage in social media to promote ourselves and thus our university, etc. If we are in the classroom for more hours, we would have to cut back on this.

Self-govern. Sure, we could have more administrators hired to do much of our self-government for us, but that would require more money. So, if we teach more, are you going to hire more administrators to do the self-governance that we would not have time for? Maybe.

I could go on, but the point here is clear--you want profs to do more time in the classroom, it will come at some cost--less time doing supervision, less time bringing in grant money and producing new knowledge, and less time doing the service that makes this academic enterprise work.

Could I teach more and still be productive? Sure, but I would have to do less stuff--I would have to say no to more students who need me to be a second or third reader on their theses and dissertations. I would have to say no to public engagement. The fundamental fallacy of the past decade or two of management has been that we can do more with less. The reality, as Dave Perry put it for his analysis of the Canadian Forces budget, is that we would have to do less with less. Indeed, with more teaching slots going to adjuncts, the research/supervision/service load is increasingly concentrated on the smaller number of tenure track folks.

To argue that professors are wasting heaps of time is to engage in the same kind of fantasy that we can cut government budgets by reducing the number of civil servants without losing any service. Most of the people in government jobs are doing something real. Most, although certainly not all, professors are working pretty hard. The idea of waste allows one to dodge the real tradeoff--if you want more of x, expect less of y. But that tradeoff is quite real. So, just be honest, and tell us what we should do less of in exchange for more classroom hours.

Many of the players in this year's tourney, including many on #TeamSpew, are new to the game. The basic instructions are at http://www.twitterfightclub.com/. But what does it mean to twitter fight in TFC15? Each round of the tourney, each player will face another player and they must out-tweet them to both the public at large and a panel of judges.

Yes, it is in part a popularity contest, which is why I tended to draft twitter-ers who have more followers. But the people with huge followings often do not engage in the game seriously, so they often don't win the votes of the judges.

So, again, what does out-tweet mean?

Well, it can be volume. That was certainly one of the strategies I used, as I could be online tweeting while doing my regular academic stuff more than some of the folks I played against who had jobs that took them away from twitter/computer and certainly those who were flying (pre-wifi in the skies those days of yesterday [two years ago]).

It can be insight/utility. That is, one tweets stuff in one's area of expertise to produce high quality tweets--helping people to learn about that area.

It should involve engagement--that the twitter fighter engages the adversary, the judges and those following the players. Twitter is far more interactive than blogs (indeed, some judges discount links to blogs), and so to be a good twitter fighter, one should be engaging those who follow you. Some judges will test the twitter fighters by asking questions or offering challenges. One would be wise to follow the judges of your round for at least the day of that round. [Yes, some ego stroking might be involved]

Funny but not brutal snark is a key ingredient. The idea of this tourney is to have banter among those doing national security stuff. So, funny tweets or strategies (someone came up with a fake twitter account of @exumAM's beard). In my last couple of rounds in my finalist campaign, I came up with some meme-ish graphics that were fun (at least to me):

I have already seen a number of players make amusing boasts and offering challenges. The key is to keep things in the spirit of the game. I have made more than a few friends and some valuable connections with the people who defeated me, those who I beat, and those who were in other parts of the brackets. Twitter fight club may seem like a time suck, but it has been very, very good to me.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Someone has edited the end of Return of the Jedi to be just the space stuff

And it is just fantastic. It ramps up the tension far more than the three sided battle--on Endor; between Luke, Daddy, and the Emperor; and the space stuff. But, well, the rest of the stuff was kind of necessary.

Still, the interplay among the various elements in space is far more compelling than the space battle that opens Revenge of the Sith. There, it is just Anakin and Obi-wan. Here, so much more with stakes one cares about.

Once again, the internet is a magical place and this is why I am on twitter.

Friday, March 20, 2015

As one of the recent finalists of Twitter Fight Club (I was second in 2013), I have the honor having one of the sections of the bracket named after me AND I get to play a role in the seeding.

Today, at 5pm, the past four finalists will take turns "drafting" the 64 people in the game. The first four people picked will be #1 seeds, the second four people picked will be #2 seeds, and so on. This takes a bit of work out of the hands of organizer of TFC: Caitlin Fitzgerald. Given how much work she does for this month-ish of silliness, snark, and networking, it is very least we could do.

How will I choose? I have financed a team of data analysts from a variety of places (you know, 538, Silicon Valley, Michigan's ICPSR, Wall Street, etc) to develop an algorithm that takes into account the competitor's klout, tweet volume, number of followers and experience in previous twitter fight clubs. I then take the subsequent ranking and move people up and down based on the quality and quantity of snark I have witnessed, their actual day jobs (working for media outlets > first year grad students), and a variety of idiosyncratic factors. For instance, there is one player who blocks me and whom I block. I will not be drafting that player.

I will be picking third in a snake-style draft--1 2 3 4 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4, etc. At the end of the tourney, the drafter who picks best (there are points for each picked player that survives each round) will be declared the winner. I have come close to winning not just the tourney but the bracket part of the competition. But I don't really expect to win here. If I do, well, woot for me!

And, yes, I am releasing my strategy ahead of the draft because the other drafters are not privvy to the particular algorithm or how I have modified even that secret formula based on fairly random factors.

Oh, and how do I know that my algorithm has face validity? Because it results in @Hayesbrown being ranked first. And he is the favorite heading in. I start with chalk but will not stick to it.

I wrote last week that the "Russian front" was far easier than the Mideast for the US and its allies because it did not involve state/nation-building/counter-insurgency. All the US and NATO has to do is credibly commit to those inside the alliance and hold the line against Russia. Not easy but easier than building stable political systems in the Mideast.

Well, next week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to announce Canada's next steps in the region and the "Syria" word has been mentioned. So, I thought I would take a moment to ponder the differences between Iraq and Syria. And the first thought is .... Iraq is easier. How so?

When people talk of endgames, strategies, and exits, there actually is a real set of answers for Iraq and damn near none for Syria. There is a recognized, semi-viable government in Iraq. Unfortunately, it has been led by Shiites who have been using their positions to make up for the years of repression and oppression by Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated government. Oh, and their religious identity makes Iran their most appealing ally. Good times. Still, this basic reality that there is something there in Baghdad means that there are ways out for the US and its allies. Not easy at all but the potential way out of the quagmire: strengthening the military and police of Iraq so that they can provide security AND the hard part--somehow the government becomes more interested in not harming the Sunnis who are not part of ISIS or any other insurgency.

Sure, that is not easy but compare it to Syria. What is the way out of Syria? Um..... Yeah. There is no viable opposition that is not ISIS, AND the government is just impossibly illegitimate. What does victory look like in Syria? Damned if I know. I have no clue about how to get from here to there. The key point here is that Syria is just very, very complex.
Hitting ISIS helps Assad, which is something most folks do not want to
do. Hitting Assad helps ISIS. Oy. Helping the other opponents of
Assad has helped ISIS since these folks tend to lose and then give up
their stuff to ISIS.

The other difference for Canada's big decision next week is that Iraq is legal--government welcomed all of us in, and intervening in Syria is not so much. No UN resolution, no NATO consensus, no government asking for help. Not sure this matters that much to Harper, but it matters to the Canadian public to a degree. Would Syria be a bridge too far? Probably not as long as the casualties stayed where they are now (one killed, three wounded).

I cannot guess what Harper will announce in a few days, although I have little doubt that Canadian Forces, in a non-convetional form, will be sticking around for a while longer in the Mideast--bombing in Iraq, SOF training plus in Iraq at the very least. Doing more? Maybe, but I would still bet against conventional forces doing counterinsurgency stuff. No Kandahar II for this government.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

That wonderful academic moment where you figure out the paper/chapter
that is due soon is, alas, quickly followed by the urgency to
procrastinate, such as with this fun game I learned via @midnight: http://www.googlefeud.com/

I was asked to participate at a Carleton workshop on social media and research. I live-tweeted it, so that means I can storify it. I missed the opportunity to vine it, snapchat it, pinterest it, and otherwise social media it.

I am not a Mideast or Israel expert (I have religiously avoided studying Israel/Palestine in my career--too much literature to read, too much emotion to wade through), but my understanding of ethnic politics leads to a few thoughts that converge with Marc Lynch's tweet yesterday:

I just assumed all along Netanyahu would win since it's worst possible outcome and when in Middle East these days is that not best bet?
— Marc Lynch (@abuaardvark) March 17, 2015

What can we conclude from what happened in this campaign and with this outcome? Simply that Israel is screwed. Netanyahu successfully "gambled for resurrection" by running as if Obama was his opponent, by outbidding his opponents in demonizing the Arab voters, and by taking the two-state solution off of the table.

Give Bibi props as it worked. And it demonstrates something that we political scientists have known far too well and for too long--that which is good for the short term, that which is good for the politician is often bad, very bad for the country. Indeed, the Bill and Steve book (which needs to have the new intro be an etch-a-sketch so that we can add new irredentism news these days) is entitled For Kin or Country for a reason.

No good can come of the stances that Netanyahu took in the last days of the election. His move to deny a two-state solution was an essentially irredentist one--that Israel will be larger, containing the Jews outside the traditional boundaries and bring in the historical (Biblical, I guess) territories. The problem, of course, is that this will mean that Israel will continue to contain an ever increasing population that is not Jewish.

People have long pondered whether Israel will remain democratic or Jewish, but that it could not be both. If a large hunk of the population cannot vote, then Israel will not be truly democratic. If they can, then they will vote and erode the Jewish character of the state. The two state solution was a way to avoid this fork in the road. Instead, Netanyahu pushed on the accelerator and the choice seems have been made last night.

I had a bit of hope, as I thought that the increased Arab vote (those residing in the 1947 boundaries can vote) could be a critical coalition partner that would lure at least one major party to engage in a multi-ethnic appeal. But Netanyahu has proved, I think, that he can win by going the other way. It is always hard for the multi-ethnic party to compete with the ethnic outbidder, but not impossible.

It seems like enough of Israel has chosen its destiny.... a very difficult and dangerous future where its most powerful ally is alienated, where the task of governing hostile territories becomes not just part of Israel's past but an integral part of its future, and where the values of many are sacrificed due to fear. Israelis have often felt friendless before, but now they are governed yet again by someone who is making friendlessness both a strategy and a goal it seems.

In the ethnic politics literature, it is generally seen as a positive thing when parties representing the majority have to appeal to minority communities for votes (see Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict). The need to appeal to non-majority groups serves to mute the incentives to engage in ethnic outbidding--to promise ever greater steps to protect one's ethnic group at the expense of others.

If Israeli politicians actually had to appear to Arabs, it might offset the power of other minorities, the ultra orthodox, as well as strengthen the hands of the less irredentistly inclinded. The statements by Netanyahu in his desperate bid to stay in power reveal that some trends are pushing against him and his party--that if the Arab vote turns out, more moderate forces may be able to govern with the support of parties presenting the Arab community.

Of course, this speaks to a larger challenge down the road--but much closer than it used to be--when Israel has to choose to be democratic or be Jewish. The one-state non-solution that Netanyahu favors these days would drive the country directly at this fork in the road. Demonizing one part of the electorate to stay in power is a perfectly democratic thing to do in the sense that it happens in most democracies (see voterfraudfraud in the US for a similar example), but it is pretty hostile to the idea and practice of democracy.

If there were not already sufficient reasons to cheer for Netanyahu's defeat, this last gasp, aimed at a minority group, should be enough.

There is good news for border-crossers: the US and Canada are working to make it easier to cross the border. It would allow that which happens at eight Canadian airports to take place in other ways--that I get cleared by US customs at the Ottawa airport (or Montreal or Toronto, etc) so that the plane then lands anywhere in the US without having to do the customs thing. The story here suggests that customs people can board trains or buses and pre-clear people before the border so that people don't have to get off, go through customs at the border, and get on.

Great in theory. But given that I have only been able to go the Nexus line once or twice when I have driven back to Canada, because it is almost always closed, I wonder if either country will pour money into having the personnel and/or into building customs facilities elsewhere to make this happen. New customs facilities in bus stations? Really? Hmmm.

Given the budget realities in both Canada and the US, consider me a doubter for now. In the long run, this stuff is likely to work out pretty well. In the short run, I just don't expect to see that much to change. After all, despite the imaginations of the globalization fans, Canada and the US remain two distinct countries that fall way short of the Schengen stuff in Europe. We ain't no EU and it ain't happening anytime soon.

Right now, all I really want is for the Nexus lines in both directions to be open longer (the US is 9-5ish it seems except on weekends, Canada: who knows).

Is this the beginning of the end? Chris Borland just quit football after a rookie year that was so surprisingly good that it astonished the guys on the Grantland Football Podcast week after week.

This is probably not the beginning of the end of football, but it is probably the start of athletes choosing to get out and perhaps choosing other sports. We may soon see a migration of folks who could have been football players to other sports where the concussion risk is either less or unknown.

Given his great first year, Borland is definitely choosing health over money as he would get paid big bucks if he kept up last year's performance. I admire him for making a very difficult choice. There is no way this was an easy decision. Indeed, choosing not to get hit is the brave choice.

Update: the fan reaction is surprisingly supportive. Given that his team just lost another key linebacker, Pat Willis, the loss of Borland is going to cause significant problems for the 49ers. Yet the early reactions support the decision. Very interesting indeed.

Islamic extremism accounted for 15 per cent of
such attacks, the document noted, while left-wing extremism and “black
power” groups followed with 13 per cent. Anti-abortion activism (8 per
cent) and nationalism/separatism (7 per cent) rounded out the list,
while in 40 per cent of cases there was no clear ideological motivation.

Of course, the non-lone wolf variety is probably tied to Islamist groups, like Al Qaeda. Still, we panic so much at Islamist terrorism that we forget that the white supremacists/right wing types are as or more violent. Indeed, what about Oklahoma City? What about the spate of attacks in the US tied to white supremacists?

All this should serve as a reminder that terrorism is a tactic and not a movement. There are terrorists in all kinds of movements, and that North America has as much to fear from the right as from anywhere else.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Thirty years ago, I started playing competitive ultimate. I had played ultimate informally before that--at high school and at summer camp. In the fall of my frosh year, I took an Experimental College (EXCO) class in ultimate frisbee. I could have started playing inter-collegiate ultimate that fall, but I waited until spring. As a result, sometime this month thirty years ago, I began playing "serious" ultimate--first with a college team against other college teams and then on league teams against other league teams with some other kinds of tournaments along the way.

The specific date does not matter, but I am struck by the reality that I have had a longer relationship with ultimate than with my wife. Sure, I have had periods of non-ultimate in my life (didn't play that much in grad school, hard to find in Texas, no time while in Virginia).

I will always be grateful that the folks playing ultimate when I started did not have the same kind of athleticism as the folks I encounter these days. I would never have gotten as much playing time ... well, I did have one advantage in 1985 that might have guaranteed it--I had a car that could fit an entire team easily.

Why has ultimate meant so much to me? Partly because I enjoyed playing a sport I could play well. Partly because the people involved tended to be silly, sweet, fun, funny, and mighty sharp. It is pretty telling that in my travels across North America, my friends usually came from two places: my department and the ultimate folks. Only in Ottawa, my latest stop, has this not applied--I had friends via other sources. But in Texas, our friends were exclusively from these two groups, and this was largely true in Montreal as well.

Anyhow, I thought I would mark the anniversary by going through the digital pictures I have handy and noting some of the teams and moments along the way.

I have a few pictures of my time playing at Oberlin. This one is handy:

It is on the baked fields of Ann Arbor, Michigan, as we played in the sectional tournament (we only made it to regionals one time during my four years and only because another team that was ahead of us could not make it). One of my teammates had a couch in the back of his truck, and it was handy on these hard fields.

This picture is of the Lubbock crew (I forget our name), playing in a distant tourney. All of our tourneys were distant, as there were no other teams in town, and no nearby towns with ultimate. I didn't play in many tournaments as I had a young kid at home at the time, but I did make it to one in Austin, one in Los Alamos (Atomic Blast--I still have the shirt), and one in Colorado (a costume tourney, which meant I had to get a cow costume that I have kept wearing on occasion [see below]).

Lubbock ultimate, at Atomic Blast

In Montreal, I played with a few teams. I played indoors at first, and found out that the Montreal frisbee community was chock full of silly folks, as you can guess from this picture. Lindsay made an immediate impression on me. She was not alone in making me welcome to this vibrant frisbee community. I played ultimate three to four seasons a year for ten years, even as some of the winter leagues (displaced by youth soccer) required a 45 minute or more drive on late winter nights to get to the field. Only at the end, with the league growing so big with so many games being played off the island, with resulting rush hour driving through the choke points, did I start shedding my ultimate commitments.

Lindsay Bales, whose hammers are almost
as silly (and effective) as her gear.

Still, the teams I played with made quite an impression. I played with BMFHard, which stood for Break Force, Mark Hard. I could only do the former, not so much the latter. But the team did let me indulge in my favorite throwing tactic, which is throwing to the side of the field the defense was seeking to deny me. I didn't always see eye to eye with my captain, but Bobby did teach me a
lot about tactics and strategy. As a result, like Bill Belichick, I seek
to start on offense in the second half.

I played several seasons with Ultimate Angels. A very silly team indeed. A largely Francophone team that tolerated/made fun of/welcomed the unilingual guy. After all, he provided some company to the oldest players on the team (yes, UA was one of the few teams after college where I was not the oldest player).

This pic was from one of my last seasons with UA and shows an old man to old man pass as Mike K was one of the few players with whom I played with and against in Montreal who was older than me. He was also much fitter... damn it. This also shows that I can run and cut long, something that surprised many teams since I tended to hang back and be one of the handlers (qb/point guard)

Playing with the Grandmaster's team of Montreal, Olde Ville (or something like it) was a pleasure and an honor. And beer from a championship cup is delightful.

In my entire career, one team stands out: General Admission. I played steadily with them in the fall and spring every year as we helped to take over the Concordia frisbee league. Eventually, they developed a winter league, and I joined GA in that as well. The team was so much fun, with so much silly, so much good ultimate, and just terrific people.

One of my first seasons with GA

Fall games near Halloween always brought out the moo in me.

I was so very touched when they threw me a surprise game on my way out of town. The pictures here are from before and after that game. I laughed a lot that evening. Not just GA players but also those whom I played against over the years.

The start to a special night.

I really felt the love that night. I miss those guys

Phil (on the left) overlapped with me for several years at Oberlin
and Chris (on the right) is the grandfather/godfather of
Oberlin Ultimate.

It was great to go back to Oberlin for various Reunion games including the 30th anniversary of Ultimate at Oberlin.

I have had fun bringing ultimate to the International Studies Association!

ISA San Diego 2012

For a year or two, I had great fun watching and sometimes playing with my daughter. Seeing Jessica play was quite a hoot. And I am thrilled to report that she now plays with her college team.

I ended up playing on the Junior team with Jean-Levy, the tall guy on the right in this picture--a fantastic player who has played with the the Canadian national team and on teams that have won at the national tourney. The kids, he, and I won the C/D bracket during the end of the season tournament. One of the older teams complained about J-L and I playing, but we were playing with 14-16 year olds against 20-40 year olds.... hee, hee.

Finally a few pictures of highlights along the way. I could never jump that well, so I always took pride in my ability to jump down/sideways: laying out for many disks.

Evidence I can leave the ground ... yet the other player
got the disk!

Mighty proud of my ability to throw any kind of throw accurately,
unlike many players, I remember that I have a backhand throw.

And thanks to my daughter and her keen editing skills, we have this video from 2014 proving that I may still have it.

Stephen M. Saideman

Intro

Greetings! I am a political scientist, specializing in International Relations, my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations. I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy.